Books I read in 2022

 Each year I write a list of books I read during the year. This is the 2022 list:

1. Masters of Doom. This is a biography on John Romero and John Carmack who created the games Doom and Quake. It tells the story from their youth up until Quake III and Daikatana. This is a book I read almost every year (so I've read it at least 5 times) because it is very well written and motivational.
2. Rock Force: The American Paratroopers Who Took Back Corregidor and Exacted MacArthur's Revenge on Japan. The book is basically Band of Brothers but in the Pacific and a single battle: The battle of Corregidor, Philippines. A tip when reading history books is to walk around the places in Google Maps. 
3. Project Hail Mary. Written by the same author as The Martian (the Matt Damon Mars movie), the idea is the same: guy gets stuck in space and has to use science to not die.
4. How to win friends and Influence People. This is an old classic, but you can still apply the information from the book, especially if you are into community management! A point from the book is that you should avoid arguing with people. Sometimes you see on Twitter how people argue angrily with each other. The arguments generally end with them blocking each other, and they proudly show print screens they were blocked. What did they win? Nothing!
5. The Phantom Major: The Story of David Stirling and the SAS. Tells the story of how David Stirling founded SAS (British special forces) during ww2. 
6. The Swedish Unicorn. A Swedish book that tells the story of Spotify from the start up until around 2017. It is officially available for free here as pdf.
7. The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War. Tells the story of how US transformed their industry into war production during ww2, with a focus on Ford and B24 bombers. 
8. Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World. This is a book about the history of measurements. I say I'm 180 cm tall - but that's not true: I might be 180.42 - or 179.65 because it doesn't matter. But when you build a jet engine you need a more exact measurement.
9. The Wolf and the Watchman. Tells the story of a made up murder in Stockholm, Sweden. The Swedish title of the book is 1793 which is also when the story takes place.
10. Spegelscener. Is a book in Swedish (the title can be translated to mirror scenes) written by a guy who once handed out the Nobel prize in literature, so he knows his words. It's a rather short book describing his adventures as a war correspondent in four wars.
11. Of Wolves and Men. Is a book about the wolf and its complicated relationship with us humans. The book was published in 1979 so it's a little bit old. For example it started with saying that the wolf has been extinct in Sweden, which I thought was a typo until I looked it up on Wikipedia. It turned out the wolf was extinct but has since then been reintroduced.
12. Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae. If you ever saw the movie 300 you know what this book is about, so expect a lot of Spartans, blood, and death.
13. Subway Art. In the Swedish subway some stations are famous for being pieces of art. But this book is about more unofficial art: graffiti in New York subway system.
14. Read This If You Want to Take Great Photographs. The title might sound like clickbait - but if you Google books to read on photography, this is the book being recommended first. 
15. Read this if you want to take great photographs of places. Follow up to "Read this if you want to take great photographs." 
16. Read This If You Want to Take Great Photographs of People. Follow up to "Read this if you want to take great photographs."  
17. The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. If you ever wanted to start a movement to take over the world, this is the book you should read. I think you can also apply it to current mass movements like Bitcoin.
18. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. Is trying to explain how ordinary German men could execute civilians during the Second World War.
19. Superfans: How to Capture Attention, Foster Community and Build the Most Loyal Following You Could Ever Imagine. You should read this book if you want to grow your social media accounts by generating superfans. It also includes a section on the negatives if you are popular on social media.  
20. The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire. I think this counts as a self-help book. I don't really need any help but it can be good to read one now and then and see if you can learn something new.
21. Brev från nollpunkten. A book in Swedish telling shorter stories from the WW1 to WW2 period.
22. Grokking Algorithms: An Illustrated Guide for Programmers and Other Curious People. Is an easy read because it's filled with pictures illustrating different algorithms.
23. Chaos: Making a New Science. It tells the history of chaos, so you get to read about the "butterfly effect," including weather predictions, pendulums, fractals, turbulence, and even the human heart.    
24. Practical Genetic Algorithms. Is about so-called Genetic Algorithms (GA) which are trying to optimize problems by mimicking evolution. 
25. The Diary of a Young Girl. Written by Anne Frank, this is a book most people know about. Here in Sweden most school children get to read the book (or watch the movie). I don't recall every reading it so I think I got to watch the movie, but now I've also read the book. 
26. Game Development Patterns with Unity 2021. Design patterns are solutions to common programming problems. These can be a little tricky to implement by just reading their description, so it can be a good idea to read how people have implemented them in their own projects. 
27. Level up your code with game programming patterns. Free book by Unity on design patterns.
28. The Art of Fluid Animation. Written by Jos Stam who came up with a clever algorithm to animate fluids.  

If you want to see all the books I've read you can stalk me on my Goodreads account.